Baby turtles emerge in their thousands at Mon Repos

New life is erupting in the largest marine turtle rookery in eastern Australia, a year on from destructive floods.

About 350 endangered loggerhead turtles have laid more than 180,000 eggs at Mon Repos Beach in south-east Queensland this season - a good recovery after floods wiped out half the eggs last year.

Almost 25,000 visitors have booked a turtle tour to witness the laying and hatching, including a young Brisbane family.

Sally, Tony and their toddler Charlie helped form a human gateway to guide the turtles by torchlight down to the water.

"I think that it's once in a lifetime thing to see them come out and go through the ocean, so it's fantastic," they said.

Back at the nest, volunteers show the visitors the remains of the spongy eggs, the size of ping pong balls, and explain how they make their way out.

The babies break out of the egg sac with their small beaks and ingest the goodness out of it for several days before making their way to the top of the 60-centimetre-deep nest.

They then wait for the temperature to drop at night and run out to sea.

On the way, they imprint the magnetic orientation of the beach to guide them back to lay their own eggs 30 years later.

Ranger in charge at Mon Repos, Cathy Gatley, says it’s been a good season.

She says there have been no more floods, but rangers have had to relocate more nests than normal because of erosion.

"We're probably a bit over the (normal nest relocation percentage of ) 30 per cent; we did have to relocate some nests when we had big tides and the wind behind those tides... I think we relocated up to 100 clutches as they got eroded."

Ranger Gatley says the relocation program can help up to 50,000 extra hatchlings make it out to sea.

Fox predation continues to be a major problem, despite baiting programs and den detection dogs, but there are early-stage plans to build a fox fence.

About 12 flatback and three green turtles have also nested at Mon Repos this season.

The turtle nesting and hatching season generally runs from October to March.